


The Grandfather Punchadox

by rorywritesstuff



Series: Felix [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Anger, Frustration, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Homophobia, M/M, Revenge, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-07-16 03:46:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7250710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rorywritesstuff/pseuds/rorywritesstuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felix asks the Doctor to take him to the sixties to meet his grandfather in his youth; little does the Doctor know that this old man has a lifetime's worth of aggression coming his way.<br/>Sequel to A Most Peculiar Gentlemen</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The TARDIS raced through the time vortex, spinning as it went. Inside, Felix stood perfectly steady, though his stomach was doing flips, and his heart was trying to burst its way out of his body.  
It was always this way when he was going to visit his mother's father.

_At six years old, Felix has been made to comb his hair and shine his shoes. He is wearing a very uncomfortable shirt and a tie that is too tight around his neck- he has already been shouted at for trying to cry his way out of the day's planned activity: they're going to visit Felix's grandfather._  
_"He's had a very hard life," Felix's mother explains for what feels like the millionth time, "his father died in the war and my mum's mother didn't want them to marry. She never approved of him and she told him that every day. He had to put up with her all his life, being cruel and dismissive. Calling him 'worthless' and 'stupid'-"_  
_"That's what he does to me!" Felix protests._  
_"Not another word. If you talk to him like that, you won't eat dinner tonight, understand?" His mother turns back to face the road without waiting for an answer.  
_ _Felix sniffs and struggles against the seatbelt, which is digging his stupid tie even further into his neck. He considers opening the door and just jumping out of the car- in his head, he thinks that the pain of hitting the road would be worth it to not go through with this visit. His father eyes him in the rear-view mirror and puts on the child locks. No escape._

_They arrive- Felix's grandfather lives far, though nowhere near far enough for Felix's comfort- and the old man is standing at the doorway, cast mostly in shadow, his face dark and thunderous. Felix tries to hide behind his father, but is dragged into view with a firm hand. His grandfather casts a cold, disdainful glance at his grandson, but his face splits in two with delight when he glances at Felix's older sister, Delilah. "Come here, sweetheart," he says- he throws open his arms and bends slightly at the knees, although he doesn't have nearly enough fleixbility left to properly hug her. He must settle instead for wrapping his shrunken hands around the back of her head._  
_Felix's father tries to push his son forward to recieve the same treatment but both grandfather and son know that this isn't happening. Felix's grandfather ushers in the family one by one- first Delilah with a gentle pat on the head, then his daughter, Felix's mother, with a quick kiss on the cheek and Felix's father with a firm handshake. Felix himself lurks outside the house, reluctant to enter the domain of insults and slaps on the wrist. The house where he is told that he is stupid and clumsy, ungainly and unlovable, where the very apparent differences between himself and Delilah are constantly, minutely dissected. Where he is told off for preferring comic books to cricket, where he is constantly asked to name the kings of England (never the queens) and made to feel stupid when he forgets one. Where he is not allowed to make any noise and is told that real boys like football; where his mother is told, repeatedly, that he should really have joined a team by now and it'll knock some sense into him.  
_ _But he must go. He must face this bullish, boorish, hateful old man and his undisguised disgust at his progeny. More than anything in the world, Felix hates visiting his grandfather._

"So, why do you want to see your grandfather so bad?" The Doctor's words jolted Felix out of his reverie.  
"I just have some things I wish I'd said to him. And I want to meet him when he's young."  
"Okay but you should know, people aren't always who you think they'll be in the past," The Doctor said, noticing a flashing light on the TARDIS console and tapping it until it stopped, "For example, Henry VII turned out to be a beaver in a ruff."  
"It's alright, Doctor, my mum used to tell me stories about him as a young man all the time. How he wooed my grandmother with flowers and awkward hand-holding. That's the man I want to see."  
"How sweet," The Doctor said.  
'So I can beat him senseless.' Felix added in his head.


	2. Chapter 2

"Shouldn't we be there by now?" Felix had only taken one other trip in the TARDIS, but it hadn't taken this long and that was from the 2010s to 1800s; he imagined it should take less time to go to the sixties. Once he thought this he realised he had no idea if it was true, and it occurred to him that he was putting his life in the hands of a science that he had no hope of comprehending.  
The engine moaned and the Doctor studied a small screen on the console, "We're moving too slowly; there's some kind of interference in the vortex." He spun his favourite pin-wheel thoughtfully.  
"What does that mean?" Felix asked, wondering how a time machine could have a relative speed.  
"Something's trying to stop us." The Doctor's brow furrowed, he flicked a switch and then the TARDIS lurched so violently that both he and Felix was cast to opposite sides of the platform.  
Felix slammed into a railing and all the air was knocked from his lungs, "Can't you counter it?" He wheezed.  
"I don't know what 'it' is." The Doctor responded and the machine gave another shudder, with a sound like a tree falling.  
Felix, clinging to the rail for dear life, asked "Has this happened before?"  
"Oh yeah, loads of times: it's really very easy to remotely hijack a time machine."  
Felix couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not. "How does one do that exactly?"  
"I don't know- I'm always the one being hijacked. I think it normally involves harmonics or something. But if you wanted to know the specifics, you'd have to ask-" He froze, and his eyes lit up with an idea, "Be right back." He tried to run off down the steps, but the ship pitched too violently and he found himself crawling on all fours.

Down in the brig, Missy sat perfectly perched, the TARDIS dipping and shaking around her, but her balance was completely unaffected; it was an old Time Lady trick. As per usual, she was reading and didn't seem to notice the calamity around her; however, when a spiky blue alien appeared in her cell, she might have paused for just a second.  
"Can I help you?" She still hadn't actually put down her book.  
"You're not Felix." Narrath looked confused.  
"Am I not? Well, I'm sure we can change that."  
"Where am I?" He looked about the Brig- the glass walls, the stark lighting- and felt dismayed. "This can't be the TARDIS."  
"Oh, can't it? Good. I'd much prefer to be kept in a regular prison- they're so...breakable. Did you know I just walked out of Alcatraz? After hypnotising the guards and feeding them to sharks, of course, but it still took less than five minutes."  
"A prison?" Narrath looked appalled.  
"Yes, dear, welcome to Fort TARDIS, where the only thing to fear is the black and grainéd spots of your soul as you stare at them for eternity. Meals at quarter past the century."  
Narrath shook his head, "The Doctor wouldn't do this."  
"Tell him that, maybe he'll find some kindness in his heart and let me go." She fluttered her eyelashes and pouted theatrically but there was a glint in her eye that struck terror into Narrath's heart.  
"Who are you?"  
"Well, you're already said I'm not Felix. Is that who you're looking for?"  
"I was looking for someone with revenge on their mind..." He tilted his head to one side as he looked at her.  
"You've come to the wrong place. I'm not planning revenge- just stone cold cruelty. It's much better because this way I don't have to be wronged."  
Narrath began to back away, fading as he did, "Yours isn't a mind I wish to know."  
Missy called after him, "I'll keep an eye out for Felix! Tell him you're looking for him!"  
A few seconds after he'd faded, the Doctor burst into the room, as the TARDIS rocked violently from side to side. "Missy-"  
"I've had enough visitors for today, thank you." She trilled.  
"Visitors? What visitors?"  
She smiled at him, "Oh, you know me. I'm just being crazy, as per usual. Best to disregard it."  
The Doctor considered for a second, but then the TARDIS rolled to the left and he banged against a wall, "Something's trying to stop us from reaching the sixties."  
"I have absolutely no insight on the situation," Missy said coldly, picking up her book.  
"But-"  
"Good day. I trust you know the way out?"  
The Doctor looked like he might respond, but instead he turned away, muttering under his breath. The door to the corridor slid open, he stepped through and fell into a bottomless chasm.


	3. Chapter 3

_As a teenager, Felix is able to avoid seeing his grandfather quite so often: when his parents suggest they visit, he can invite himself over to his friends’ houses or pretend that he has some important piece of homework to complete. His parents know what he is doing, but don’t push the issue. Delilah, of course, always goes without hesitation._   
_However, there is one time a year when the old man is unavoidable. His grandfather always come to ruin Christmas: muttering to himself; accusing anyone who will listen of being gluttonous and spoiled; casting aspersions on the food, the decorations, the choice of TV; puncturing any and all moments of joy with his constant outpour of misery. Felix tries locking himself in his room, but his parents force him to come down and sit with the joyless old codger. And when they are alone, the real insults come out._   
_“Sissy…pansy…embarrassment…degenerate….fairy.”_

As he lurched towards the controls, thrown by a sudden movement of the machine, Felix realised that if he were to hit one of the buttons, he might accidentally launch himself into the cold void of space. Or undo his own birth. Or make it so that Hitler ruled the earth. Or, worse, Russel Crowe. He really needed to try and learn how the TARDIS worked.   
He managed to avoid touching any buttons by jutting out his elbow and instead bashing his funny bone. It hurt, but at least the timeline was saved from contentious Australians. He looked up and realised that the Tardis had calmed; the control room was still. He looked at the great pendulous engine in the centre and saw that it, too, had stopped. They were no longer travelling through time.   
“Hello.”  
Felix recognised the voice, but didn’t turn around straight away. He needed to compose himself. He closed his eyes and took some deep breaths and then spun on his heel.   
“Narrath,” his voice spiked horribly. So much for composition.  
“Hello, Felix.” His voice was always so calm and so very, very deep.   
“Please go away.”  
“I can’t. You need me.”  
“That didn’t stop you the first time.”  
Narrath didn’t look guilty at this; Felix was tempted to try and punch him, too.   
“You need to listen to me; what you’re doing-”   
“Are you the one interfering with the TARDIS?”  
“Yes.”  
“How?”  
“Harmonics. That’s not important-”  
“No, tell me actually how, I want to understand this stuff.”  
“It’s very complicated, it involves jamming a psionic frequency-”  
“Wait, wait, wait. Birovians don’t have that kind of technology- you couldn’t even work the microwave.”  
“Felix!” It was the first time Felix had heard Narrath raise his voice. “You need to listen, you can’t attack your grandfather.”  
“I think you’ll find I can, I’ve got a time machine now.”   
“You shouldn’t.”  
“I’m not going to kill him, just punch him once, right in his hateful face.”  
“He’s not the one who sounds hateful at the moment.”  
Felix felt bile rising in his throat, “You don’t know what he said to me. You don’t know how he treated me. You don’t know what that bigoted little…” he searched for a word awful enough to describe his grandfather, “…goblin did to me.”  
“I’m sorry that he said those things. I’m sorry that you feel so much anger. But you can’t let that anger make your decisions for you.” His mouth was downturned with sadness.   
“I’m making this decision. I’m going to punch my grandfather, and it’s going to feel amazing.”  
“Will it? Or will you still feel just as irate and depressed as before? You can’t keep blaming other people for how you feel.”   
“Then other people should stop letting me down.”   
Narrath took the hint and shook his head. “You think I’m responsible for your moods, but I’m not. You’d feel the same even if I’d stayed.”   
"Are you going to keep up stuck in the time stream forever?”  
“No. I can’t. I was hoping to reason with you.”   
Felix folded his arms and leant back against the console, “Well, no luck. I’m being a jackass.”   
“I can see that.”  
“So, what are you going to do?”  
“Destroy this ship.”  
“What?”  
Narrath’s form suddenly began to change; bubbling and bulging, his body separated into dozens of beetle-like creatures, each the size of a fist. They landed on the grated floor and immediately dispersed, heading each for different parts of the console. And then they began to eat.


End file.
